


Marks Upon My Skin

by MagusLibera



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-04-21 08:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22057168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Oliver's body is a map of scars. Felicity's scars are far less visible, more like the 'X' that marks the spot. But the stories behind them are essential to both spouses. And sharing that with their children is like a right of passage.A two-shot.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 14
Kudos: 96





	1. In a Decade

**Author's Note:**

> It's the end of the decade everyone. I'm less than two hours away from 2020, so here is part one of my latest short. I hope that the '20s bring joy to everyone.

**Chapter I – In a Decade**

Ten years. It had been ten years since Oliver had stepped on the Gambit, long ago that September. Ten years since Ollie Queen set off on his final, unfaithful adventure and had subsequently drowned. Ten years since Kapot, Luchnik, Kapiushon, the Vigilante, the Hood, the Arrow, Al Sah-him, Warith al Ghul, the Green Arrow, Oliver had been forged in the fires of purgatory.

How things had changed. He had left as a son and a brother. A decade later, and he was no longer a son, and his sister was in a coma but he had become an ex-fiancé (though he hoped to soon change that) and, most importantly, a father. A single parent to a son who had been through more trauma than any child should have to suffer.

That morning, the morning marking ten years since the beginning of his rebirth, a morning five years later than his return from hell, he found himself standing in a similar position to one that he had taken back then. He stood in front of a floor length mirror in his bedroom, though in his own apartment rather than in the Queen Mansion, with nothing covering his skin other than a towel wrapped around his waist, and he catalogued his scars.

His five years away had shifted his body from a lean, fit vanity project designed to maximise on the number of girls he could get to a killing machine designed for efficiency, with every muscle having a purpose. Another five years on, and the changes to his body were just as significant. Back then, his movements had been designed to increase his speed as much as possible. He was a large man to begin with and, as an archer, being swift, skilled and having speedy reactions was far more useful to him than being the strongest man in the fight. More recently, however, he had felt those quick movements begin to slow, his bones began to ache and old wounds flared up on what seemed like a daily basis. Ten years fighting would take its toll on anyone, Oliver was realising. Ten years fighting with fatal stakes and almost weekly injury, that left marks both visible and less so and he had been forced to shift his fighting style to adjust to it. He became more violent, more brutal in his actions. His muscles became bulkier, letting him pack more of a punch so that he could hold his ground in fights with younger, more agile opponents. Not that he let his reactions fall by the wayside, but there came a point where he was forced to acknowledge what his body was telling him and change himself because of it.

But regardless of his physical changes in terms of muscles and shape and the length of his beard, regardless of the changes to the way that he loved and thought and the stability of his mental state, the story of his decade could be best told by his scars. By his tattoos. Countless nights had been spent with Felicity’s hands tracing the marks on his skin, her touch healing them. She had helped him come to terms with the stories behind each of them, she had let him find a way to heal himself. He missed her.

*************************

Lost in thought, he managed to miss the tapping of feet on floorboards and the creak of a door opening. He did not realise that he was no longer alone in the room until he heard a soft voice say “Oliver?”

His heart leapt into his throat as he twisted around, “William?” he exclaimed, “What… what are you doing here?”

But his son was not looking up at him, he was looking at the torn up torso that was bared before him, his mouth slightly agape. Oliver turned, looking for something to cover up with before realising the mistake that he had made. Showing his son his back, which was just as – if not _more_ damaged than his front. “Oliver?” William gasped again, eyes wide. Oliver sighed, pulling on a t-shirt.

“What did you need, William?”

Eyes still fixed on what once was Oliver’s Bratva tattoo, William said, “Uh… Raisa said that she’s heading out but she made some food for us.”

“Okay, Buddy, I’ll be out in a minute.” William nodded, still not tearing his eyes from the mottled tissue on his father’s chest before leaving.

As soon as the door was closed, Oliver let out a curse, furious at himself for being so careless and allowing his son to see his torso. It was just like Thea, back in his first weeks home, except his son had reacted with far less gumption and questions and far more shock. Nevertheless, Oliver expected that he would have to answer a fair number of questions over dinner. He finished dressing himself, dreading what was to come.

Dinner began awkwardly. Not unusual for Oliver and his son who was still yet to warm to his father. But that time, it was not William’s normal sullen silence. Not his regular reticence. It was more like he was afraid to meet Oliver’s eyes. Oliver sighed again. “Buddy?” he prompted, but received no response, “William.” William hummed an acknowledgement.

“I think that we need to talk about… about what you just saw in there.”

“We don’t have to.” William looked uncomfortable.

“I think that we do.” William did not answer, “Buddy… I need you to tell me what you’re thinking.”

“What about?”

“You know what, William. You just saw something that you must have a lot of questions about. I’d be shocked if you didn’t. I need you to let me know what’s going on with you so that I can answer them properly. So that I can explain.”

“I told you,” William sounded a little angry, but Oliver could tell that it was discomfort, fear even, that made him sound like that, “We don’t need to talk about it.”

“William.” Oliver allowed a reprimand to creep into his voice.

“All I saw was that you have scars. That’s not exactly a shock, Oliver. You’re the Green Arrow, of course you have been injured.”

“Yeah but Will-”

“I’m going to go to my room.” His son announced as he pushed back from a nearly untouched plate and left. Oliver fell back in his chair, defeated.

*************************

It was not until months later that they finally had their talk. It was after Oliver had stopped his vigilante activities and once he had brought Felicity into his son’s life. When they were settled. Happy. When William felt, for the first time, comfortable in his own home. Over dinner one night, William looked up at his father, “I was scared.”

“Of what, Buddy?” Oliver jumped to attention.

“Losing you. When I saw your scars.”

“Oh.”

“It was like this physical reminder of everything that you have been through and all of the times that you nearly died and I almost lost my chance to get to know you and I couldn’t handle it. It felt like evidence. It was telling me that you would eventually die too and I’d be all alone. But I’ve thought about it since and I realise now that it’s not evidence that you’re going to die, it is evidence instead of how resilient you are. Of how capable you are of surviving. And I know that you won’t leave me alone now.”

“Oh.” Oliver repeated, dumbfounded. Awed by his son’s intelligence and understanding.

“I do have one question though.”

“Yeah, anything?” Oliver said, his hand gripping Felicity’s.

“Was that a bite mark on the side of your belly?”

Oliver laughed, “Yeah, Buddy. It was.”

“It was from a _shark_.” Felicity interjected, prompting William to beg for the entire story. And what could Oliver have done but tell him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Mia and Felicity.
> 
> Stay safe tonight for all of those still celebrating New Year's Eve.


	2. In a Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mia discovers the marks that her mother bears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... the start of this chapter did NOT turn out as expected but I quite like the angst. I hope that you do too!

**Chapter II – In a Moment**

Once upon a time, Felicity Smoak had experienced a strange phenomenon that she referred to as scar envy. Looking back, the envy may have been less scar based and more focused on a certain abdominally impressive vigilante. Being in love with a man who spent months alluding to at least liking her back (later, she learnt that he loved her too, but she had not known it at the time) only to eventually be forced to watch him in a relationship with a woman who, in her mind, had been better than her in pretty much every way. And it was completely ridiculous but Oliver, Sara and John all had all their scars and they came with so many stories, so many that Oliver and Sara shared with one another, a history that Felicity could never compete with, and she had nothing to contribute to that conversation. No way to empathise with her team.

At any other time, she would not have behaved in such a way. She would have been strong and it would simply have been a _thing_ that made her different from them. It would not have been the first, they all played a very different role in the team to her, nor would it have been the first time that Felicity was set aside from those around her. That had been her childhood, her teens, her college years. Even her time at QC, both in the IT department and as Oliver’s EA.

That time though, that time she felt that her entire value to the team was slipping away from her. Everything that she offered, everything that she was to Oliver, it had all started to seem insignificant in the face of what Sara could offer. Sara was smart enough to do the science stuff, even the computers since Felicity had rigged them up so well that even an idiot could do surveillance on them. Sara could patch Oliver up, and would he not prefer that? Having his beautiful girlfriend’s hands on him, healing him, instead of his awkward, bespectacled tech girl. And what did she do for the team other than that? Offer some decent advice to Oliver? Be there for him when he needed to rant or needed a friendly face after a hard day? Well, those jobs would surely go to Sara.

And so, being who she was, she babbled about her _gum_ scars.

Later that very same week, she had received her first real scar. It had hurt like hell and the pain had made her feel guilty. Because what sort of person would feel jealous that they had not experienced as much pain as their friends? What sort of person would be happy to get a scar in front of a group of people who had deep rooted trauma attached to their own marks? She had confessed those thoughts to Oliver once, years later, apologising for it. He had smiled and told her that she was wrong to have ever thought it, that none of them had judged her, that they all just thought that she was adorable.

A full collection of scars had followed that first one, not all of which came with such a brave story. Felicity learnt just how naïve she had been in her envy, but she was never ashamed of her injuries. Oliver never allowed her to be, and to be ashamed of them would have been to be the worst of hypocrites because she always told him to be proud of his marks, to see them as symbols of his strength, so she made sure to do the same.

*************************

Regardless of how she personally felt about her skin, she tried to keep the worst of them covered around Mia as the little girl grew up. One day, she fully intended to show her daughter the stretches of mottled, once injured tissue and the uniform lines that mapped out her many surgeries and the silvery webbing from her pregnancy. She wanted to show her daughter that perfect skin was not a prerequisite for beauty and that everyone had imperfections and to teach Mia to be proud of any blemishes that she may receive (she predicted many, the girl was a wild child and already had a few small scars from her rambunctious activities).

But telling a three year old about the evil in the world that led to most of her hurts was not something that she was ready to do. For her entire life Mia had already seen enough of the darkness out there as she had to grow up without her daddy. Without anyone but her mommy.

************************

The day that Felicity told Mia about her first scar came far earlier than she had ever hoped. She should have predicted it. Life never went as she had planned it and Mia was so unpredictable that there was no way that _nothing_ would happen. Mia had decided to climb the largest, oldest tree in their forest. The one that she had been banned from climbing. Felicity was quickly discovering that banning her five year old from doing anything was like waving a big red flag at her and telling her to go for it. Alone. Because it was banned and doing it in the safe way, with her mother or Nyssa present, was not an option.

Felicity was re-evaluating her child control methods.

Climbing that tree alone went exactly as expected. Nyssa’s training had allowed Mia to develop levels of dexterity and agility far above most others her age but she was still just a five year old kid. Even a metahuman five year old would struggle with the trees next to their cabin. So Mia made it a couple of feet up – a feat in and of itself because those branches were _not_ close together and Mia was not the longest of children – before she overextended herself and slipped, falling right to the ground. That itself would have been a hard enough fall for a child to take, but Mia had also managed to land on a small but sharp rock and she had cut her shoulder open. Badly. So badly that Felicity decided that she would have to stitch her baby girl up.

Mia had not wailed for long, only at the initial shock of it all. Then, she had recalled Nyssa’s training and worked through the pain, reducing her visible upset to just a few sniffles. Felicity marvelled at how resilient her kid was. Just like Oliver. She also marvelled at how Mia, who trained with Nyssa almost every day on rocky terrain and with several sharp objects, had managed to keep all of her training injuries to a few minor cuts that left only fairly quickly fading scars but she slashed herself open when trying to have fun.

As Felicity applied a child safe local anaesthetic to the area around Mia’s injury, the little girl looked up at her with watery eyes and sniffled, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“It’s okay, Baby. But do you understand why I said not to climb that tree now?”

Mia nodded, “I just wanted to prove that I could climb as well as Daddy.”

Felicity paused, a disinfected needle hovering over Mia’s skin, “Is this because of the story that I told you last night?” the night before, Felicity had talked to her daughter about her first visit to ‘Daddy’s Island’ and how he had saved her by swinging from a tree.

“Yes. I wanted to practice saving you too.”

Felicity sighed, “Mia. I didn’t tell you that story to make you think that you had to do it too. I told you so that you could know about when Daddy chose to come back home and save the city with Uncle John and I. That doesn’t mean that you have to copy him.”

“But-”

“No, Mia. I know that you’re just as brave as your daddy. Braver, even. And one day, if you want to, you’re going to be even better than he was at things like climbing trees and saving people, but when Daddy swung from the tree he was almost thirty years old and all grown up. You’re still five, Mia. You need to get a little bit taller and a little bit older before you’re ready for any of that.”

Finished with the stitches, Felicity strapped a gauze over the area and kissed a thoughtful Mia’s forehead, “You’re going to have a big scar there, Kiddo.”

“I am?” she said, looking a little upset at the thought.

“Yeah, Baby. But do you know what?”

“What?”

“I have a scar on my shoulder too.”

“_You do_?” Mia looked at her shoulder, like she would be able to see something under the jacket that her mother was wearing.

Felicity laughed, “Do you want to see?” Mia nodded her response.

Felicity took off her jacket and pushed down her top to expose her shoulder. She twisted her body to show her daughter the line, about an inch long, where the stitches had held together her skin after Tockman shot her and Sara had to remove the bullet from where it was lodged inside her. She felt Mia’s little fingers tracing the line and circling the larger section in the centre that had once been bullet shaped.

“How did it happen, Mommy?” Mia breathed.

Felicity paused, unsure how to answer, but she decided to tell her daughter the truth, “There was a very bad man and he was trying to steal lots of money from lots of people so Daddy and Aunt Sara and Uncle John and I decided to stop him. But I made a silly decision and went into the field on my own. Daddy got very angry with me and he tried to make me leave but then the bad man came and I told Daddy that I was going to stay and help. I managed to track down the bad man and Aunt Sara ran after him but I still wanted to help so I ran after her. When I got to them, the bad man was trying to shoot Aunt Sara, so I pushed her out of the way – and that is the only time that you’re allowed to push _anyone_, Mia, when they’re in danger and you need to save them. Unfortunately, as I pushed her out of the way, I got hit. This was my very first proper scar, Mia. And I’m very proud of it, because I got it whilst being brave. You were trying to do something brave today too. It was not clever, so I hope that you learn your lesson and don’t do anything dangerous without help again. But it was brave and it was noble, so you can be proud of this scar too.”

“I want to be as brave as you, Mommy. I want to save people too.”

“You’re braver than you know already, Mia.” Felicity kissed the crown of her daughter’s head, cradling the nape of her neck.

*************************

The rest of Felicity’s scars became known to Mia only a few years after that. Felicity had been changing, and Mia had come running in, fresh from training as she yelled about something that she had learnt.

“Mia!” Felicity exclaimed, rushing to cover up.

“Mom?” Mia stilled, forgetting what she had been so excited about, “What’s that on your back?”

“Do you remember when I told you about my first scar?”

“Yeah.”

“Well these are my other ones, like I mentioned.”

“Can I see?” In the few years since she had fallen from the tree, Mia’s collection of marks had already grown and she was fascinated by other peoples’ scars.

Felicity closed her eyes, taking a moment before nodding and dropping the blanket that she had wrapped around herself so that her lower torso was visible. “There are so many.” Mia gasped. She was right. Felicity’s back bore the ends of her stretch marks, the burns and cuts from the flying debris on Lian Yu when it had exploded with everyone on it, injuries from various incidents in the field and from abductions. And of course, she bore the many lines from where scalpels had cut into her when saving her life after the limo shooting and from the futile attempts to circumvent her paralysis. And the small incision where her biostimulant had been implanted.

“Yeah, there are a lot.”

“These ones are big. What are they from?” Mia touched her surgical scars.

“Those, Miss Mia, are from when I got shot in the spine and I was paralysed. The doctors had to perform some surgeries to try and save my life and get the bullet out of me, and then they had to operate a few more times to try and repair the damage and help me walk again.”

“It worked, though.” Mia stated, hopefully.

“No, Baby. I was paralysed for a little while but then somebody that Daddy and I used to know made an implantable biostimulant and,” Felicity paused, moving her hand to a spot well traced by her husband’s hand, “This is where it was put into my spine and it helps me walk now by transporting the electrical charge in my nerves across the gap where they were severed so that it can reach my legs and I can walk.”

  
Mia touched the spot with her own hand. “Wow. That’s clever.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“I’m happy that the doctors saved you, Mommy. I wouldn’t want to grow up without you, you’re my favourite person in the world.”

Holding back a sob, Felicity responded, “You’re mine too, Mia-Bear.” And she wrapped herself around her daughter’s small frame. As she held Mia, she felt the little girl’s thin arms as they wound their way around her shoulders, clinging to her. Mia’s right hand shifted from where it rested on Felicity’s neck so that it could reach her right shoulder and cover that very first scar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read and left kudos and comments! I hope that all of you have a good new year!

**Author's Note:**

> [Forgot this earlier but: Twitter, [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera), no beta, you get it]


End file.
